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Schools

Education Filmmaker Tells Ridgewood to Ease Up on Students

A documentary film shown at BF looks at the challenges and anxiety facing students.

Students across the country are over-worked and getting sick from stress, according to the documentary “Race to Nowhere,” which was played at Benjamin Franklin Middle School Monday night with the filmmaker on hand to discuss what could be changed in Ridgewood schools to prevent that from happening.

In the film, filmmaker Vicki Abeles explores the problems of the current education system and the causes of stress for students today, including excessive amounts of homework, extracurricular activities, sports and the overwhelming pressure to succeed by getting into a highly-ranked college.

“I don’t buy into the fact that you need to go to a name brand school,” Abeles said.

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Abeles was inspired to make the film after seeing the effects of stress in her own children, and the suicide of her daughter’s classmate in 2008. Like Ables, the district too has felt the chill of student suicides in recent years.

Additionally, many students have rigorous schedules stacked atop of one another–from athletics to tutoring to instruments–all on top of homework and the expectation that it's a top college or else.

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As an alternative to students pushing themselves to the point of hurting themselves, she recommends that students, parents, teachers and administrators work together to change their schools for the better by teaching students skills rather than memorizing answers to tests, and said homework should be cut back or possibly eliminated.

The main cause of the problems, according to the film, is the No Child Left Behind Act, which rewards schools which perform well on standardized tests but does not give money to schools that might need it more.

“I think that kids are born with an innate desire to learn and to grow,” Abeles said, “and our schools and culture tends to take that out of kids today.”

After the movie, Abeles discussed the issue with audience members, which included parents, teachers and students alike.

Several audience members said they would begin contacting district officials to institute more plans like Abeles suggested. The district has experimented with this kind of thinking before, such as the recent week with no homework over the winter break.

“We’re the type of community that is high-powered and committed to education,” said Principal Anthony Orsini. But, he added, it’s important that the students “are able to be kids.”

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